Artwork stolen from Manchester bar tracked down in Australia after Facebook campaign

A piece of an artwork stolen from a a city centre bar in Manchester has turned up - 9,000 miles away in Australia.

The leather jacket, part of an art installation at Common Bar in the Northern Quarter, was was taken from the Edge Street venue last month.

Staff were stunned when a man jumped on a bar stool and grabbed the jacket from a coat hanger which was screwed to the wall, before fleeing, at around 7.30pm on Tuesday, 21st October.

Bosses were determined to find it and despite informing police, they launched a social media hunt for it.

Eagle-eyed punters at the bar spotted a Facebook post by a young Australian man appearing to show the jacket hanging on his bedroom wall.

After bosses got in touch he admitted he had taken the valuable 1950s motorcycle jacket as a dare on his last night in Manchester and had taken back with him to his homeland.

They are now negotiating with him in order to have it returned.

General Manager Iwan Roberts said the theft of the jacket, which was on loan to the bar from artist Idiots Pasture, had left everyone angry and upset.

It was part of a show called The Gravehounds of Bone Street by the Skull Paradise collective, based on four fictional dogs and had ‘Leader of the Pack’ written the back.